The government is still running more than a half-trillion dollar deficit right now, with one month left to go in the fiscal year, despite record revenue being hauled in.
CNSNews reports that “Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $2,663,426,000,000 for the first 11 months of the fiscal year this August, but the federal government still ran a $589,185,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.”
Thus, the government is still over-spending, to the tune of $3,252,611,000,000 in total expenses so far this year.
Here’s the breakdown of revenue:
Individual income taxes: $1,233,274,000,000
Corporate income taxes: $247,200,000,000
Employment and general retirement (off-budget): $674,338,000,000
Employment and general retirement (on-budget): $209,281,000,000
Unemployment insurance: $54,591,000,000
Other retirement receipts: $3,155,000,000
Excise taxes: $73,051,000,000
Estate and gift taxes: $17,702,000,000
Customs duties: $30,902,000,000
Miscellaneous receipts: $119,933,000,000
So just remember, the problem isn’t enough tax revenue or underfunded programs — it’s that the government can’t seems to stay on budget or within its revenue receipts. All this overspending does is just continue to add to the growing deficit.
Supporters of President Obama continually try to rationalize his decisions on the basis of some philosophical and moral philosophy. In fact, it does seem clear to most rational thinkers that, in fact, the President chooses the most politically expedient position at the moment. Nothing makes this clearer than Obama’s all-over-the-lot positions on the debt ceiling.
CNS News released an excerpt” from President Obama’s speech given on September 18 at the Business Roundtable in D.C. During his discussion, Obama remarked,
“Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved.”
However a speech given in 2006 by then-Senator Obama on the occasion of raising the debt ceiling under President George Bush paints a completely different picture. Back then, Obama actually laments that that Federal spending has not been reduced, which he in turn blames for an increase in deficits, therefore resulting in more money borrowing and a need to raise the debt ceiling:
“Tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them”
What else did Senator Obama say? He also described Bush’s increase of federal debt by $ 3.5 trillion over 5 years to be “reckless fiscal policies”, and a sign of “leadership failure”.
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is ‘‘trillion’’ with a ‘‘T.’’ That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion”
Yet in merely three years of Obama’s Administration, from 09/30/09 – 09/30/12 (the last year for which figures were available), the debt increased $ $4.1 Trillion, from $1,909,829,003,511.75 to $16,066,241,407,385.89. These numbers were taken from Treasurydirect.gov. Obama’s own fiscal policies have proven to be worse.
So because we are in so much more debt, we need to raise the debt ceiling yet again. And we find Obama at his recent speech rationalizing the need to raise the debt ceiling in order to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States for the future:
“And I have responsibilities at this point not just to the current generation but to future generations, and we’re not ‘going to set up a situation where the full faith and credit of the United States is put on the table every year or every year and a half, and we go through some sort of terrifying financial brinksmanship because of some ideological arguments that people are having about some particular issue of the day. We’re not going to do that.”
But what was did Obama think about his responsibilities to current and future generations and the full faith and credit of the United States back in 2006? As a Senator, Obama used that same argument against raising the debt ceiling
“Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘‘the buck stops here.’’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
It’s quite clear: What Obama said and thought as a Senator during the Bush administration in 2006 versus what Obama says and thinks as the President in 2013 regarding the very same topic, the debt ceiling, yields two very different sets of conclusions. When Obama argued against the debt ceiling as a Senator, we were at $8.5 Trillion in federal debt created in a span of 200+ years. A mere 7 years later, we have managed to double that number, with 5 of those 7 years under Obama’s watch. The explosive growth of federal debt under President Obama is gross fiduciary negligence.
An interesting thing to note about Obama’s 2006 speech against the debt ceiling. The original text of the speech should be in the Senate archives online, but it was removed months ago after an NRO article drew attention to it in January 2013. Shortly after that article ran, the link to the speech came back as an “error”.
Unsurprisingly, the link has yet to be fixed as of this morning. When the link originially disappeared, the Heritage Foundation was able to get a copy of the text from the Government Printing Office (gpo.gov). They dug it up there because the online Senate file was scrubbed.
And after the NRO article ran, I reproduced it here in its entirety. It almost sounds…..conservative. Obama-the-President wouldn’t like that.
As the Senate prepares to pass the Sandy Hurricane Relief Act for $50.5 Billion, it’s worthwhile to consider this piece of legislation within the bigger picture of looming the fiscal crises. No one will deny that those citizens who were affected by this catastrophic and legendary storm deserve help. However, the bill perfectly encapsulates the dysfunction of our Congress. In merely a few short weeks, Congress has managed to figure out how to fritter away a year’s worth of revenue that was raised — after many months of wrangling and negotiations. (more…)
Recently I gave a talk on the Fiscal Cliff — how we got here and where we are going. Since several people have asked, I posted the videos from the talk. For whatever reason, the last 2 minutes ended up a second separate video, but you can view them one after the other. Enjoy!
Time for another milestone. I noted it when it was 1,000 days past, but today we are now 1331 days without a budget. Nevermind all the doomsday talk for tomorrow — our fiscal situation is dire now.
April 29, 2009 is the last time Congress passed a budget. Obama’s two budgets proposals failed 0-97 in the Senate, and 0-414 in the House. No Democrats would vote for, or even sponsor, his proposals.
Right now we are about: $16,370,000,000,000 in debt. But that is not the whole picture. It doesn’t include entitlement debt, which makes the situation more egregious.
And what about the fiscal cliff? Harry Reid has decided to send Congress home for Christmas and reconvene on December 27th, and rules out a vote on Boehner’s “Plan B”. On the contrary, Eric Cantor has said the House has the votes for “Plan B”. “Plan B” raises taxes for taxpayers above $1 million, while the Senate version is a much lower, $250,000 threshold. More discussions, but no answers. We continue on in a state of uncertainty.
Yesterday, I wrote out a primer which showed all government debt, spending, and fiscal cliff solutions scaled down to manageable numbers. If you were to reduce equally everything by $10 million, you can understand the figures in amounts we are use to.
For instance:
Total Current Financial Picture for a Family of Three, on a $25,000 income
Annual Revenue: $25,000
Annual Spending: $38,000
Annual Expenses/Deficit per year: $13,000
Current Government “Shadow” Debt: $156,000 (ie. think – like your mortgage & credit cards)
Promised Future Entitlement Debt (SS and Medicare): $603,000
Total Family Debt on a $25,000 Income = $759,000 + $13,000 in annual added deficits
Debt “Fiscal Cliff” Solutions:
Obama’s Plan: cuts a mere $812 a year for 10 years and adds $1242 in revenue
Boehner’s Plan: cuts a mere $955 a year for 10 years and adds $955 in revenue.
With 11 days out before the fiscal cliff deadline and no solution in sight, you can be sure the “no-budget clock” will also continue ticking. 1331 days…and counting.
